6m skip work in London snowfall

BRITAIN’s capital cleared the soggy remnants of a paralysing snowstorm as businesses counted the multi billion-pound cost.

An estimated six million people skipped work on Monday when the largest snowstorm to hit London in 18 years stopped bus and subway services, grounded airliners and hobbled businesses.The Federation of Small Businesses said the cost to Britain’s economy through lost productivity could be as high as £3 billion (3.3bn).

Transportation officials, business leaders and local authorities accused one another of failing to prepare for the long-predicted storm that crippled Britain’s transport network by dropping more than four inches of snow in London overnight on Sunday, and another four inches on Monday.

“We can’t change nature and if nature does this to us we have a problem,” said John Ransford, chief executive of Britain’s Local Government Association, which represents the small district and town councils largely responsible for keeping roads and paths clear.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said many of the city’s authorities simply did not have enough snow ploughs to deal with the downfall. In the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, the local authority said it had no ploughs and only two machines to salt roads.

“One of the world’s biggest economies should not be grinding to a halt,” said Stephen Alambritis, of the Federation of Small Businesses.

Most airports, bus routes and subway lines in London were working as normal yesterday, but more than 1,000 British schools remained closed and thousands of workers were staying home for a second day as icy conditions continued.